How to Measure Sleep Wake Cycle

Whether you want to monitor your sleeping habits for medical purposes or for general knowledge, you can keep track of the number of sleep cycles you naturally sleep. With this information handy, you can change your sleep strategy. For example, if you normally fall asleep around 11 PM, but you often work past that time, complete your work earlier so that you can observe your body's natural sleep cycle. It takes 90 minutes to complete one full sleep cycle. Wait until the weekend or a day that you are not required to wake up early to complete this test.

Instructions

• 1

  Make sure that a working clock is set near your bed and that you can see it from the position in which you usually fall asleep. Turn off the alarm if it is enabled.

• 2

  Look at the clock as soon as you feel yourself falling asleep.

• 3

  Look at the clock again as soon as you wake up.

• 4

  Divide the number of hours you slept by 90 minutes. That figure is the number of complete cycles you have slept. For example, if you fell asleep at 11:00 PM and naturally wok up at 8:00 AM, you have slept for nine hours. Ninety divided by nine is six complete cycles of sleep.